The Language of Flowers
by HecateA
Summary: "The language of flowers, sometimes called floriography, is a means of cryptological communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. Meaning has been attributed to flowers for thousands of years, and some form of floriography has been practiced in traditional cultures throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East." And now in Oklahoma City. Oneshot.


**So let's make a list of the things that I like right now.**

**1) Norse mythology**

**2) The Battle of the Fandoms- a writing contest organised by Lunknownl (who was thankfully not offended when the whole awesome concept flew over my head...) It's pretty awesome stuff- check it out on her profile if you can guys!**

**3) Coconut pancakes**

**4)The fact that this oneshot which I've been working on for a year is done and being sent in to such an awesome concept. So here it goes! Enjoy, and tell me what you think!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters shown below**

* * *

**The Language of Flowers**

"Chicken fingers for the little princess in the back," he said putting down a plate, "a Monterey burger for Mom and a Tennessee burger for Dad." He said putting down the plates.

"Thank you," the woman smiled. "Amy, what'd you say?"

"Thank you," the little girl said.

"You're very welcome," he replied. "Anything else I can get you folks?"

"Ketchup?"

"Of course," he said walking back to the kitchen. His shift was nearly over; he had time to check on his tables one last time.

A few people came to the diner routinely. Families who had every Wednesday meal around, construction workers who came by day after day for weeks at a time. One of those people was the tutor, and she was there again, sitting in front of a high school student, his open textbook, and a blank piece of paper. They were talking about Elizabethan times and Shakespeare today, and she was tapping her eraser to a line in his textbook saying that it was the strongest line in a poem they were reading and leading him to answer the question 'why?'

She was gorgeous, which was another reason why he remembered her.

But she was gorgeous- that was undeniable, superficial as it may sound. Her hair was golden brown and pulled back in a loose braid over her shoulders. She was in her young twenties, with a ballet's dancer's build. Her eyes were the same blue as the sky when you drove a hundred miles out of Oklahoma City and ended up in the middle of nowhere and as bright as the stars you'd find there at night. She always wore a beige scarf cluttered with flowers around her neck, and today she had a dark blue sweater on.

"Excuse me for interrupting," he said putting a hand on the table. "Is everything alright here?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied with a smile that left him stunned for a little while.

"Great," he said returning her smile before walking away.

* * *

"Tris, that you?" Someone, John, called once he'd walked inside.

"Yeah," he replied putting down his key and shrugging off his jacket. He made his way to the kitchen in the back of the house and opened the fridge.

"Carla forgot to buy food." Tristan called out.

"Was it my turn?" Carla asked walking into the room frowning.

"Yeah it was, I remember," Violet who was following her answered. "And so now we starve."

"No, _I'll _starve, you've all had supper already," Tristan said closing the fridge door. "If someone gives me a twenty I'll go take a walk," Tristan offered. The pure suggestion that anyone in the house had even seen a twenty dollar bill in the last week was hilarious. They called this house The House of Desperate Art Students for a reason. "Desperate" was interchangeable with "Broke", "Mentally unstable" and "socially unacceptable" on most days.

They raided Bradley's room (because Bradley was the only one who wasn't home on the grounds of being out with Harvey) and found a stash of money in an empty tub of margarine.

"Little bastard's been holding out on us," Violet said handing Tristan a twenty dollar bill. "Go find food Tristan, you're my favourite person."

"Love you too, Vi."

And so he set off.

They were all majoring in art some way or another. They'd all been living in ratty apartments when they'd met each other, realised that they could rent a townhouse and cram themselves in it and make it work. So they had, and except for malfunctions on the who's-in-charge-of-buying-the-food schedule and the cleaning front it worked out fine. And even then it worked out fine, like Tristan was about to find out.

He had managed to buy bread, ham, eggs and mustard at the convenience store two blocks down before it closed, though the owner wasn't happy that he'd strolled in ten minutes before closing time. Tristan knew that he was being rude and he did say sorry.

"You on the food run for the rest of your roommates?" He asked trying to be pleasant anyways, because there was a big-chain grocery store not far either and the owner lived in constant fear of losing his clientele. He shouldn't worry too much though; the extra five minutes to walk discouraged all of them. The Desperate Art Students were about as lazy as you could come.

"I'm on a food run for all of us," Tristan said.

He also had enough money to stop at the payphone (because the townhouse lot wasn't worth a home phone if they put all of themselves together) and called Aunt Rose who lived back at the reserve. She was glad to hear from him, told him that his dad was out hunting with Uncle Doug so she'd just pass the message on that he was doing well. She asked him if he was fed right, he said yes, she told him that he probably wasn't and that she'd make him eat until his stomach hurt when he got back home. He said he couldn't wait, because he couldn't, and that he had to go.

He walked back home again. There wasn't anyone on the street except a woman at the bus stop a dozen feet away. He just kept walking, trying to get his whole Shakespeare dialect through his head. He had a habit of losing his own lines and having his head full of other people's words.

_Last night of all,_

_When yond same star that's westward from the pole_

_Had made his course t'illume that part of heaven_

_Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself-_

The guy seemed to come out of nowhere. He walked behind the woman and suddenly wrapped his arms around her, a hand over her mouth. Tristan dropped his bag and ran.

He was trying to push her against the bus shelter, searching her pockets for whatever, but Tristan nailed him in the back of the head with a hard punch. He crumpled to the ground, but managed to crawl away before Tristan could do anything, get up on his feet and run. Tristan nearly went after him but his priorities were overall elsewhere.

"Are you okay?" He asked the girl. "Did he hurt you?"

He recognised her scarf first- the small flowers everywhere.

"No, I'm fine. Thank you. I got scared for a second, not a lot of good things are running around right now." She said releasing a breath.

"No problem," he said.

"I'm Anita," she said holding out her hand. "Anita Delaney."

"Tristan McLean," he said shaking it. "You shouldn't be here alone; this isn't exactly the best place in town to be after dark. I know that you've got no reason to trust me but I'd feel a lot better if… well, do you mind if I wait with you? Just in case?"

He was sure he'd talked too much.

"That's okay," Anita smiled. "It's always good to know chivalry's not dead."

They sat down on the bench since she was taking the 9:30 bus.

"So, you tutor at the diner every day?" He asked.

She nodded. "Duncan comes around every evening. I don't have much to do so I spend a lot of extra time there. They play some old music, serve some cheap coffee, waiters are nice, it's always quiet… I'm in paradise."

"What do you do all day, though?" She asked.

"Lots of things," she said. "I work odd jobs. I read a lot."

"What genre?" Tristan, who read as much as he could himself, asked.

Her face lit up. "Romance. _All _the romance, all the books, all the times."

"Cool," Tristan said although he knew nothing about romance.

"I also have a job with Crystal Wear. You must've heard of it if you're an actor."

"Big fashion company. They make the kind of clothes that college students don't even touch when they mysteriously appear in stores that college students go to. Yeah, I know." Tristan nodded.

Anita laughed. "I go in once a week and show everything I've drawn out. I'm afraid I'm too much of a free spirit for a cubicle."

"So what kind of things do you draw for them?" Tristan asked.

Anita was chatty, and he'd obviously gotten her started on something she loved. Her eyes sparkled as she talked and he could only nod and say 'mm-hmm' because part of his attention was on her eyes, not her words.

"And you're a waiter?" She asked.

"Yeah," Tristan said once he realised she was talking to him again. "Until people start getting paid to go to college that is."

"So for another five million years," Anita suggested.

"Well hopefully I'll graduate before that," Tristan said. She laughed.

"What are you studying?" She asked.

"I'm getting my Bachelor's degree in fine arts. In the theater." He said.

"Oh that's sharp. At Oklahoma City University?"

"That's the place," he said.

"How's that going?"

"Really well, actually, I'm surprised." He said.

"Why? Sharp looking guy like you, strong voice like yours, I'm surprised you're not already in something." She said.

Tristan laughed nervously and asked, "How do you know I'm any good, though?"

She shrugged. "I have an eye for these things."

"I wish my professors had that," Tristan joked.

Anita shook her head. "No you don't, you like working. You like what you do, that's why you're so good at it."

"That's true. I always played in school shows, not that there were many people interested. There was always a good turnout though."

"Nobody was interested?" Anita asked.

He was about to explain about the reserve when two headlights appeared at the end of the street. They'd talked for the whole hour.

"There's your bus," he said. She nodded.

"What time does the next one pass?" She asked looking at the schedule.

"Tomorrow."

"That's too bad. I guess I can't skip this one, then. It was great meeting you Tristan, thanks again." She said getting up and picking up her book bag off the floor.

"Yeah, it was great to talk to you for once," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She frowned.

"At the diner," he said.

"Of course," she nodded and smiled. The bus stopped in front of them and Anita went in.

When Tristan was about to go home, he realised that his grocery bag was back at his feet. Weird.

But he picked it up and made his way home where Violet was pretending to be dead on the floor out of pure hunger, Clara was drawing her, Bradley was back and trying to talk Violet into getting off his feet and Miguel –who was home now- wanted to film it all.

"I got eggs," he said walking in

"TRISTAN!" Violet said getting up to her feet and basically running into his arms in pure joy at the idea of food.

* * *

Tristan walked towards the stage and Jim tried to trip him. He grabbed on to one of the blackbox chairs and stopped himself from face-planting.

"I hope your toga _sucks," _Tristan said. It was a common threat, satirizing their play. _Antigone, _by Sophocles- an Ancient Greek myth.

"Ouch," Jim said. "That's hurtful."

"Messenger," the director called tapping his cane to the stage. He was an older gentleman, maybe fifty, but he didn't need that cane. It was one of Jack's idiosyncrasies, and what would anyone do without them? "Move it."

Tristan got moving and he climbed onstage.

"Okay," he said putting a hand through his hair and tapping the cane some more. "So… card-playing trio, I want you in that corner. Creon, back to where you were when Haemon left in a fury. Okay, let's do this. Scene 3, go."

* * *

He was working the morning shift on Sunday. The place was empty because people were either sleeping in or at church. Except for Anita, who was sitting alone, absent-mindedly stirring her coffee with her nose plunged in a book worn with much carrying around and many pages flipped.

_Man up, _he thought. _Man up. Man the heck up. Go. Now._

He topped off her coffee.

"Oh- thanks." She said.

"Do you mind if I sit?" He asked.

"Not at all," she said flattening her book against the table. He pulled a chair, his heart beating fast, and sat down.

"It's quiet here," she said. "It makes for good reading."

"Oh, if I'm disturbing…"

"No, no," she said. "It's fine. This part's a little slow."

"What book is it?"

"Beauty and the Beast," she said with a smile. "It's one of my favourite stories."

"Isn't the original version gruesome?"

"No, no, that's Cinderella. Beauty and the Beast… That's always been a good one. Do you want to know something that Disney didn't put into their movie?"

"Sure," he said.

"You remember how the old woman cast a curse on the Beast because of his refusal to give her a rose?"

"More or less," Tristan said.

"After Beauty married the Beast, the only thing growing in the gardens were roses. The castle was called the Castle of Roses," she said with a giddy smile. "Sorry, I'm hopeless for these things."

"No, that's fine. I… I guess it's sweet."

Anita laughed. "You're better off than half the male population, then. In the story, Mme Barbot de Villeneuve also has the Beast ask Beauty in marriage once, but be denied."

"That's not very romantic."

"To me it is."

"You don't believe in twue wuv?" Tristan asked. "Love at first sight?"

"Not really. Love isn't a joyride, and it can't be romantic without love. He stayed her friend after that, I think it's even better."

* * *

"Duncan," she said sternly.

He smacked the textbook off the table. "Really sick of you!" He said.

"Duncan, that's enough." Anita said. Duncan gave her the finger and used a choice word. Tristan put down the tray and went over immediately.

"Excuse me, sir; I'm going to have to ask you to leave." He said.

"Come on man, you have no idea…"

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Tristan said again.

"This bitch…"

"I asked you to leave, please. And don't call her that." Tristan snapped.

"You bastard," Duncan said.

"How'd you know?" Tristan replied crossing his arms to shut him up.

Duncan looked shocked out of speech for a second, and then he pushed everything on the table off and stormed out of the restaurant.

"Are you okay?" He asked her.

Anita nodded.

"Okay, good. Give me a second," he said putting a hand on Anita's arm. He went to go finish delivering what was on the platter, and then he helped Anita pick up her books.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"I already said yes."

"I'm just checking," he said. "Good."

"You already said that too," Anita said with a sad little smile. "Sorry, he made a mess I… I just told him to restart his homework and he got mad."

"It's okay," Tristan said. "Don't worry about it; it's not your fault."

That's when he noticed the cut on her arm, from a shattered cup.

"Really, Tris, I'm fine." She said once she'd realised what he was looking at. He grabbed the First Aid kit behind the counter, fixed her up, swept up the debris and washed his hands again. He came back out with a cup of coffee for her, black like she liked it.

"On the house," he said.

"Thank you," Anita smiled. "I'm really thankful."

"Not a problem," he said. "Really, as long as you're okay, everything's fine."

* * *

She looked vaguely disappointed the next day when she sat alone during the usual tutoring session. He dropped off a cup of coffee.

"On the house," he said.

"Again? Oh, no, it's fine I-"

"Accept this coffee that is on the house," Tristan finished for her. "Right? Besides, you like it black. Really, it's no trouble."

She smiled at him, and wrapped her hands around the mug.

"Actually, the best way to drink coffee is to make it half hot chocolate," Anita said.

"I would do that but there is no hot chocolate in this building ergo I cannot."

"I wouldn't expect you to," Anita said offering him another week smile.

* * *

Ditto on the second day, but by this time Tristan was looking to do something way more helpful than coffee.

* * *

That night he was scrolling through pages of the Internet. The new teacher was a special one, which was common for retired artists but still aggravating and occasionally worrying, and made them guess the new play they'd work on instead of giving them the title and script like a regular person. So a Google search led to another, one link led to another and…

_The language of flowers _was the webpage's name. He kept reading. It sounded like a play…

_The language of flowers, also called floriography, is the art of expressing oneself through flowers. It was a means of communication between lovers in the Victorian-era, each flower associated with a meaning or a phrase._

He read up some more.

* * *

She didn't touch her coffee and let it grow cold in the cup.

* * *

After work he stopped at a flower shop that was open late.

The old woman manning the counter was making bouquets when he made his request.

"Coreopsis?" She asked. "You bet I have some."

"Just one please," Tristan said.

She went to the cold room adjoining the main store and came back out holding a yellow flower with a dark center.

"I have every flower you could want, young man. Although most settle for red roses when it comes to their girlfriends…"

"She's not my girlfriend," Tristan said. "She's a friend."

"Well now you've done it boy," she said handing it to him as he gave her a bill. "You've said the words; now she's going to become the most beautiful love story you will ever have."

Tristan took his change, took the flower and left the store.

* * *

He scribbled the website he'd spent the last few days looking at on a napkinand laid the flower over it.

Why was he doing this?

She was at the bathroom when he put her coffee down at her spot, and left her the flower too.

He watched her return to her seat from behind the breakfast nook as he washed it.

She sat down and looked at the flower. She picked it up and spun it between her fingers curiously.

Vinny walked out of the kitchen, stuffing a notepad in his pocket. "I can take over, man."

Tristan dropped what he was doing and rushed to the back room to get his bag and ran for it.

* * *

Basically, in the Victorian era it became cool for lovers to send flowers instead of giving a message verbally. It was especially trendy with lovers who were going against society or the family's wishes to be together, people having affairs, and criminals.

A coreopsis stood for eternal cheerfulness.

* * *

When he picked up her table the next day he got a flower back- a small white flower with spread petals.

Capanula. Gratitude.

He smiled and tucked it in his apron's pocket.

* * *

"That's a good book," he said when he saw what she was reading. Anita looked up.

"This? Really? It was old and abandoned in the library when I found it."

"It was my mom's favourite book in the world, when I was a kid." Tristan said.

"How can you tell what someone's favourite book is? How can you have _one _favourite book? All the stories are different and all the characters are. Can you imagine one plot with another's characters?" Anita asked.

"Well," Tristan said sitting down with her since the diner was empty. "I know because when I was little she passed away. And I remember that for the week before she died my parents didn't drive to the hospital a million miles away from the reserve anymore, they stayed at home, close to each other. And she was always reading that book. When she died she had that book open on her lap. So I also happen to know what her favourite page of that book is."

He slipped Anita's copy out of her hand and flipped the pages after keeping hers with a napkin. He spun the book towards her.

"This one," he said pointing to page 189.

Anita read the last line. "'And though I didn't want to be a fool, and I didn't want to be repeating his name in my head and giggle at his worst jokes I knew I didn't have a choice because I wanted to be in love. And thankfully for me, I was.'"

Her face melted a bit and she smiled, like whenever something romantic came to her.

"Spoilers," she said tapping Tristan's elbow with the book. "But beautiful. Your mom had good taste."

"That she did."

Anita put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry you lost her."

Tristan tried to shrug. "Stuff happens, right?"

"That doesn't make it okay."

"No, but it's semi-comforting to think of that."

* * *

A month had passed. A month of crazy people in The House of Desperate Art Students (which was still a food-zero most of the time), a month of shifts at the diner, a month of driving back out to the reserve on weekends to check up on family, a month of classes, and a month of talking with Anita which was, if he was honest, his highlight.

March was half over and the weather was unusually chilly.

Also the whole theater department of Oklahoma City University was having a Spring Equinox party, because why not have a part on the Equinox?

Even though the timing was stupid, the party was a big deal, as it had been for the last three years that Tristan had studied at OCU. Usually he dragged along Violet or Carla or whoever begged most. This year he felt slightly more daring. Daring, but not realistically gutsy enough.

For the last month he'd been taking coffee and flowers to Anita's table. Usually they'd just be tiny little messages, like orchids or something. Then they'd talk during death times. He'd look at the designs that she'd show him in her sketchpads and she'd chatter on about books and stories and symbolism and anything, basically. He'd pipe in about books and wonder at the sketches, and she'd smile every time as if his opinion mattered.

He was an actor. He had always been that one kid in class who read with expression or could talk with an accent for the weekend and lip-synch movies. He should be fearless with audiences and crowds, so why couldn't he just talk honestly to one person?

Maybe that was the point. There was one person, and that one person meant a lot to him. When he was acting, nobody in the audience knew the script so if he screwed up he could just improvise and carry on and everyone would forget. When you were asking someone to a dance… they knew exactly what was going on in your head.

Tristan already got teased because his hair was longer, because he was Cherokee, because as a kid he'd been the only one to read and understand Shakespeare decently… He was very scared to be himself, in his own skin, because that was when you could make a fool out of yourself.

* * *

"I'm not late!" Jim yelled as the church basement door slammed behind him. He was holding coffee.

"If you don't have any for me you are," Jack said.

Jacinth, who played Antigone, spun towards Jim and shook her head in disapproval.

"Oh, go cry me a river," Jim said throwing his hands up.

"I will, and I will drown millions," Jacinth replied. She ran off to go get her costume when Jack and the costume accessorist Joyce started barking at her.

"What did I miss?" Jim asked Tristan.

"We're getting costumes today," he said.

"Ha. Togas," Jim grinned.

"You don't have to look so smug just because you get armour."

"Yeah, I really do actually Mr Toga."

"Togas aren't that bad." Tristan said.

"When the hell did you ever wear a toga before?"

* * *

Violet used the tip of a paintbrush to get a waffle out of the toaster. She was very practical that way- she used hairspray for about twelve things, eyeliner as charcoal, charcoal as eyeliner, bulldog clips as barrettes, sandpaper as nail file… She was an art student, very clearly and bluntly and maybe alarmingly so. People had stopped letting her know that she had oil paint in her hair ages ago. This was what happened when your parents wanted you to become a lawyer and refused to help out with tuition in art school.

"I made you one," Violet said handing him a plate.

"Oh. That's surprisingly kind."

"Don't push your luck, McLean. You were up all night. I heard you pacing. Nervous?"

"Sort-of."

"For your play?" She asked taking a bite out of her waffle.

"No," he said.

"So there's a girl!" Violet said delighted.

"What? No-n-no…"

"For an actor you're a terrible liar," Violet said.

"How the hell is that the first thing that comes to mind?" He asked shaking his head.

"Girls have meetings in the night. Under the cover of darkness we gather in the sewers and discuss current events that may affect our master plan to overthrow the male gender." She said casually. She hopped onto the counter and put a finger to her lips.

"Hmm… who could it be? A tragic scholarship actrice who was saved from a life of poverty and prostitution by the theater? A blonde blue-eyed plain Jane? No, no, no- you're better than that. Is she insane? Is her hair, like, blue and green as part of a social experiment? Maybe she _is _a social experiment and she was raised by an ape."

"No to all," he said.

"Is she taken? Is that why you won't talk about it? Maybe she's married."

"Stop it, Violet." Tristan said. "She is _not _married."

"Oh," Violet said. "She's the girl from the diner."

"When on earth did I ever say _anything _that could possibly lead you to that?" Tristan protested.

Violet took a huge mouthful of Ego.

"I'm a female, McLean," she said mouth full. "I'm graceful and sophisticated, sensual and feminine. I just _know_ these things. Now tell me her name or I'm Chinese-water-torturing the hell out of you."

"Anita," he said knowing not to take Violet's threats lightly. He'd woken up with loaves of bread, chunks of butter, emptied-out kiwis and egg shells spread all over the floor of his room once after chewing her out for not getting groceries.

"Tranita," she said immediately.

"Oh- for the love of-"

"Okay- okay- I'm sorry- I'm sorry." She said. "What's so wrong, though? What's bothering you?"

"I want to ask her out but I can't."

"Is she single?"

"Yes."

"Then why the hell not?" Violet said. "Is she deaf-mute?"

"You know what, I'm done with you." Tristan said tossing his waffle onto her plate and setting his down on the counter. He ignored her pleas to stay and forgive her as he grabbed his bag and a jacket and went out the door. He wasn't truly mad at her- she was Violet and she'd been wide awake for the last five days on eight hours of sleep and she had made him waffles. He was just irritated with everything, mostly himself.

But her advice stuck to him as he walked to class.

_Why the hell not?_

* * *

The old woman waved him off when he tried to pay for the flower he'd just picked up. She knew him pretty well by now, and he knew her name, Janet, and she tried to make him call her that every time.

"No, come on…" Tristan tried to argue.

She pushed an arthritic finger onto the counter.

"I know Victorian flower language, young man." She said menacingly. "And I insist that this viscaria is on the house."

* * *

When he gave her the coffee, the flower was with it.

It meant an invitation to dance in Victorian floriagraphy or whatever it was called. He could barely keep his thoughts straight right then.

And when Anita looked up, his hunch was clearly confirmed: she knew Victorian flower language too- how to read flowers, strange as that was.

She smiled and nodded. "Give me a time and place. I'll be there," she said.

* * *

He was picking up Anita's usual table the night after the dance. Along with a few bills and coins to pay for coffee, there was a flower.

This one was easy to identify- it was a rose, dark pink.

_Thank you._

* * *

Tristan returned a flower next time he delivered coffee.

A geranium- which was a bright red flower with five petals.

_Your hand for the next dance._

Anita brightened as soon as he put it down in front of her.

* * *

Her answer came on his next morning shift in the form of a carnation. It's colour was solid, there was only one, as opposed to stripes.

Any carnation, striped- _Yes._

* * *

After that everything just slid into place like a puzzle. Tristan swore that his life had become a movie. A _good _movie too. Academy award winning, if he did say so himself.

They ate out, they saw movies together, went to bookstores. She helped him practise his lines as he closed up the diner and he lent her an ear whenever something bothered her or when she needed to gush about x, y or z. He learned a lot about Anita Delaney- which diluted the mysteries of her without diluting how he felt.

She was originally a New Yorker, but she'd left her family because of some serious drama.

"Someone was being told how to love, who to love and when to love." Aphrodite said. "It's a whole baby dilemma- as per usual with my folks. Anyways, I couldn't handle that. I told them so, my point didn't come through, and so I left and came here."

She had an outstandingly big sweet tooth.

Books made her cry and laugh and gasp and get angry and about anything else in the spectre of human emotion.

She was in everything for the stories that might come out of it.

She liked most people on the earth, even the ones who weren't likable to anyone else. Once again, because of stories she could get out of them.

Her favourite colour was red.

She was a free spirit.

She liked to cuddle.

And he guessed that he had a girlfriend now.

* * *

It was a very systematic process how she took one book down, read the back, read the first two pages and flipped through the rest of the book before putting it back. It became kind of hypnotising after a while.

"What are you looking for?" Tristan asked.

"Just a good book," she said. "I seem to have hit a shortage."

"What kind of book?"

"My favourites are the one with pages," Anita said.

"Wow aren't you hilarious," Tristan said.

"Hey, you're smiling," Anita reproached him. Her hair was swept up in an extremely loose ponytail and ringlets were falling behind her ears. She wore her flower-dotted scarf and a brown leather jacket.

"You make me smile no matter how dumb your jokes are," he said putting an arm around her and kissing her cheek.

"Okay, no." She said.

"What?" Tristan frowned.

"You are being _so _cheap," she said.

"What do you mean?" He asked. He was panicking a bit- what in the world had he done?

"I know you have better aim than that," Anita said. "Yet you always land it on the cheek."

His heart stopped.

It wasn't like he didn't want to kiss her. He'd just grown up with a dad who told him that if he didn't respect people, they could hide the body and he'd never look. Dad had always said that he had to be better than the rest of the idiots in the country in that way. With women, especially so- plus after his mother had passed away his Aunt had started drilling it in his head. He'd read book after book of chivalrous characters and that had rubbed off on him, according to Clara: "If it weren't for your better hygiene you could be a knight out of the Dark Ages". Maybe that made him afraid of coming off too strongly, maybe he was just scared because no other girl he'd kissed had been right.

But here she was basically demanding it.

"Well, maybe if I get the angle right…" He said turning her shoulders gently and tilting her chin up. The light in her eyes was bright.

"Perfect," he said before kissing her.

* * *

He was whistling when he made it back home. Violet was in the living room lying among a bunch of notes and starring at the ceiling like she wished it would just fall on top of her that very moment (studying).

"Hey," he said.

"Good evening," Violet said not blinking.

He ignored her, she did this periodically and after three years of living in this house he knew that it wasn't dangerous.

He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk. Violet followed him and sat on the counter. Her hair was uncombed and held up by a graphic pen, she had glitter under one eye, paint on her cheek and her nails harboured small rainbows under each and every one of them.

"You're in a good mood," she said puzzled, as if Tristan were as grumpy and moody as Ebeneiser Scrooge and this was truly alarming.

"Yes, and you have purple on your cheek."

"Why are you in a good mood?"

"Why do you have purple on your cheek?"

"Art and pain and poor fine motor skills," Violet said. Tristan rolled his eyes, gulped down his glass and dropped it in the sink.

"What's going on?" She asked in a humming voice that told him that if she didn't find out now, she would be bugging him on his deathbed for him to tell her.

"Nothing," Tristan said.

"_Holy crap you kissed Anita didn't you?"_

Violet was definitely the one idiot in this house who could read minds.

"No," he said.

"Yes you did, yes you did," she said hitting his arm.

"Okay, yes, I did. Woohoo. You don't usually throw a party every time I kiss a girl."

"That's because you always kiss girls."

"Always, eh? Nice to know that my love life is that fruitful."

"Okay, maybe not always. But you never kissed Anita before."

"Now there's a very, very small chance that I'm wrong right now- but I believe that Anita is a girl." Tristan said. "Like, I believe this very strongly."

"Yes, but there is a difference between a girl and _a _girl," Violet said.

Tristan's stomach tightened up.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure she's one of the later." Violet said. She patted his shoulder, hopped off the counter and went to lie down in her flock of paper again.

* * *

Anyways, the first time that he brought her to the House of Desperate Art Students in late January he was pretty sure that things were going to nose-dive straight to hell because everyone and their gay lover and their dog was home.

Literally. They had a dog in the house for some reason that Violet insisted was logical, but that Tristan didn't get.

Of course, nobody was supposed to be home at this hour. But one of them could read minds so as soon as Tristan was planning on bringing someone over they were all at home and Bradley had researched a bunch of embarrassing diseases that he could call out about.

He opened the door and held it open for Anita. She was assaulted by Violet and Clara.

"Hi, I'm Tristan's therapist." Violet said holding out her hand.

"And here we go," Tristan said to himself under his breath.

"Violet we talked about this- you're the one who bit Tristan. _I'm _the therapist, pleased to meet you." Clara said holding out her own hand and smiling sweetly.

Tristan kept his hands in his pockets and mentally started formulating an explanation for that.

Anita laughed and gave him a smile before shaking Clara's hand.

"You can keep your shoes off, nobody cleans anyways." Bradley called from the living room, from where he sat on the back of the couch.

"We do so clean," Tristan muttered under his breath. This was a great first impression. Thank you _so much _roommates.

Anita just walked in and Tristan followed. There was a game of Scrabble going on in the living room, and so everyone was there.

"Anita, that's John, Miguel, Bradley, Harvey," he said. "Guys, this is Anita, be nice to her."

"Always," Miguel said putting a few letter tiles down.

"That's not a word!" Bradley yelled out pointing at the board.

"_Hover _is _so _a word, asshat." Miguel said.

"We're not playing with fancy lingo here, _hover _is too high-tech for us."

"What is that even supposed to mean?"

"I'll show you around," Tristan said. "If they start arguing about a word it'll probably take about twenty minutes."

Anita laughed. She was going to have the time of her life at dinner, in that case.

* * *

The door rang.

"Remember," Violet said waving her finger at everyone in the House in turn. "You are deaf mute, you don't speak English, you are selectively mute, you are comatose, and you are recovering from a throat cancer." She respectively pointed towards Bradley, Miguel, Harvey, John, and Clara. "And you were all in the same car accident. McLean, you ready for this?"

"Like every year," Tristan said fixing his jacket and propping up his collar.

Violet went to go open the door.

"Vi!" Some very pleased man said.

"Hello daddy. Mother."

"Violet," her mother said cordially. "I see that the garage has still not been painted."

"No, well, you know how it is… We're poor and stuff."

"The house looks trashy."

"The house _is _trashy," Miguel muttered.

"I still don't like the neighbourhood." Her mother said.

"_We _still don't like the neighbourhood." Clara muttered.

Tristan shot them a warning look.

John punched Clara and Miguel as he was sitting between them.

"Yeah, well… Hey, aren't you all excited to see Tristan?"

"Oh yes," her mother said. "I am pleased to hear that he is still boarding here."

"Yeah well… Yeah. TRISTAN BUTT HERE NOW."

"She gives excellent cues," Miguel said clapping his hands.

Tristan walked up to the front door where Violet's parents beamed at him as if he was their own child. Violet's soulless mother, who looked so much like her daughter that the personality differences probably qualified as culture shock, even shook his hand.

"Hello Mr and Mrs. Argon." He said. "It's nice to see you again."

"How are the studies going m'boy?" Mr Argon asked.

"Very well, thank you sir." Tristan said. "Although right now it's a lot of internships at the general hospitals."

"Really? Where are you now?"

"The psychiatry department at the general hospital," Tristan said. He was lying through his teeth, but every year since he and Violet were roommates he did this. When her parents came once a year to make sure that their daughter wasn't living with addicts or pimps or whatever they though Oklahoma was filled of, Tristan pretended to be a med student. It kept the visits yearly, ergo less painful.

"That sounds very interesting," Mrs. Argon said. "Doesn't it, Violet? I think that you would have made a good doctor."

"I think that the sky should be pink and that rain should be booze," Violet put in.

Her mother clucked her tongue.

"Still haven't considered her to take on that pending scholarship, eh Tristan?" Mr Argon said, trying to joke.

Their shoes weren't even off yet, and they were already talking about postsecondary studies.

This was going to be a long visit…

"Sir, I'm not trying." Violet gave Tristan a thankful smile. As ditzy and light as Violet could be, when her parents were around she walked with her head down, her back round, and a thirst for support. Tristan gave her a meaningful look. "You wouldn't either if you saw her last painting."

"Yes, excellent idea," Violet said. "Come in, come see, don't mind the deaf mute."

* * *

Tristan was afraid to blink now.

_Blink_

Suddenly Antigone wasn't showing anymore.

_Blink._

It was summer.

_Blink._

He'd graduated from school.

_Blink._

Violet's birthday.

_Blink._

Anita was spending nights in the House of Desperate Art Students.

_Blink._

Classes were over.

He didn't mind of course. Every time he blinked, something good seemed to happen.

* * *

Everyone was lounging at the kitchen table and a plate of scrambled eggs rested in the middle. They were probably Anita's doing considering the edible quality there was to them.

"Don't you dare walk through that door without eating," Clara called. He froze at the foot of the staircase, tried to think about his chances of escape if he ran and decided that they were really bad. He kissed Anita on the head and went to sit down.

"Morning," he said- to which he got a choir of various responses as he spooned eggs onto a piece of toast.

"You're in a rush," Bradley said barely looking up from his newspaper.

"I've got places to be by 11:30," Tristan said. "And the buses are always a mess on Sundays."

"That audition doohickey right?" Miguel said.

"In shmancy-theater-speak, we call it an audition." He said.

Miguel made a face.

"Cool, for what?" John asked.

"The Boy who Won't Grow Up," Tristan said. "Basically Mitchr Pan."

"Are you going to fly around in tights?" Violet asked with a grin on her face.

Tristan shrugged. "I'll take what I can get."

"You'll probably get a more adult role," Anita said. "Like George Darling, or the Pirates, or Red Chief even."

"That last one is probably what I'll end up with," Tristan said.

"I think you'd make a good Captain Hook." Anita said. "You play maniacs well."

Everyone around the table laughed, Anita included.

"Thank you sweetheart."

She pushed his shoulder. "That's not what I meant."

"Anybody else got anything to do?" Tristan asked before someone could take the joke a step further.

"Class," Bradley grumbled.

"I've got to get some shots," Miguel said.

"I knew there was something wrong with you," Violet said.

"I meant with a _camera," _Miguel said shooting her a dark look.

Tristan didn't stick around much longer because he didn't want to push his luck. Anita wrapped her arms around his chest when he was at the door, pulling on a shoe. He turned around and kissed her on the forehead.

"Break a leg," she said with a smile.

"Thank you," he said. She poked something in his bag. He looked down. The flower had a black center and a dozen small yellow petals- he recognised them from Aunt Rose's garden, it was a black-eyed Susan.

_Encouragement._

* * *

Anita got home from work early. They'd been planning on going to watch a movie or something that night since he'd had the day off due to renovations at the restaurant.

"It's me," she called.

"Stupid greeting since there are about ten possible 'me's that could be in this house," Violet said.

"Stop being bitter just because you're nearly bankrupt," John said putting down a 'Get out of Jail Free' card down on the board and moving the little dog out of jail. Blood have been drawn for that pawn.

Anita dropped her keys in a bowl by the door that was meant to hold keys but also had wrapped mints from restaurants, spare change (which was never stranded for long) and a small Mario figurine that had lived there for twelve months now. Violet had made him a small sign "A-where is my a-brother?" Tristan was still keeping his eye out for a small Luigi figurine to add to the bowl.

She walked into the kitchen, unbuttoning her rain-soaked coat and consoled Violet about how poorly her Monopoly was going.

"And?" She asked with a smile, wrapping her arms around his shoulders when she got to him.

"Don't know yet," Tristan said. He made a face at her.

"They said that they would call before five, there are still hours." She said.

Tristan shook his head. "I don't think that I made the cut, I hadn't slept well the night before."

"Have a little faith, I'm sure you did great," she said playing with his hair.

"There are still hours left, like she said." Violet pitched in. "Just wait some more, that's all. Also put me out of my Monopoly misery, I'm dying here. Just put a hotel on some property I'm bound to land on, that could do me in."

"I can help," Anita said.

"Saved!" Violet cheered as Anita pulled up the chair next to her. Her hair was pulled up in a braid/knot hybrid in the back of her head, and dotted with small white flowers.

Snowdrops- _Hope, faith._

Violet wasn't nearly out of debt but definitely not on the verge of bankruptcy either when the phone rang and Tristan nearly died of his own shock.

At least the news was good.

"Yeah, I'm still interested in the project," Tristan told the director on the other end. The other three were making faces at him and so he turned around.

"Good, umm, would you be able to get to the Douglass Recreation Center tomorrow? Say at nine, we'd like to do a reading with the rest of the cast."

"Of course," Tristan said reaching for a pen and scribbling down the details down on his hand.

"Great. We would love for you to play Captain Hook, is that okay?"

"Of course," Tristan said mentally cheering.

"Great, we'll see you tomorrow."

"Have a nice evening, sir." Tristan said hanging up.

"You did it, you're smiling!" Anita said getting to her feet.

"Yeah, I did." He said. He didn't know if he was more happy or relieved. Internally wise, he was completely freaking out because Mitchr Pan had been his favourite book as a kid. Money wise, this would help a lot despite the short time the play would operate for.

"Who are you playing?" John asked.

He put his arm around Anita. "Tinker Bell," Tristan said. "They think I've got the shape for it."

* * *

The production of _The Boy who Wouldn't Grow Up _had suddenly suffered budget cuts when it came to theater space, and so Tristan's sources on quick text memorisation had saved his butt and gotten him in. Anita said that he'd have gotten in the cast one way or the other, but he wasn't sure.

The plan now was to have all the actors memorise their lines over the summer, practise from September to October, and then play in actual theaters for two weeks and the last week in schools. Most of the crew were kids- Mitchr, Wendy, John and Michael Darling, the Lost Boys, Tiger Lily even! Tristan was incredibly happy that the kids were actually played by kids. The only twist was that there was no actual dog to play Nana, but that was pretty okay. The guy who was going to play Nana was cool.

His stomach was filled with jitterbugs about the play, though. He wasn't a university anymore; he was just another doofus on the street. Jobs were starting to actually matter now, not just to look pretty on a resume or help train. This was what he'd be doing for the rest of his life.

When he wasn't practising, he worked shifts at the diner.

The project wasn't made to last and it crashed and died in August, after two months of not auditioning for everything because he'd thought his part was safe. Which sucked a lot, seemed like a bad omen, and had him in a pretty sulky mood for a while. He couldn't get his act together again for other auditions and he sucked in class.

He was getting ready for bed earlier than anyone else because out of sheer exhaustion he'd retreated to the sleeping patterns of an eight year old.

There was a vase on the bedside table, filled with tiny white flowers gathered in bunches.

_Lauristinus- cheerful in adversity._

By the time he got his head back in it, it was October. Then he ended up getting a part- which was nice too. He was to play Bob Cratchit- Scrooge's brutalised clerk.

He had his lines down in no time and the part wasn't super demanding for him. He could step into the character easy as pie. Poor? Check. Large family? Not directly, but check. Horrible bosses? He knew all about those. Now it was a question of rehearsals, getting used to the accessories and space, and waiting for December and the performances to roll around.

Around November he talked to his dad for the first time in a while.

"You're coming over for Thanksgiving, aren't you?"

He heard Aunt Rose yell in the back: "_Tell the boy he doesn't have a choice!"_

"Of course I'm coming home for Thanksgiving, I never miss Thanksgiving," Tristan said.

"Are you bringing that Violet girl this time too? Tell her that Jim Smith has cupboards to paint if she comes."

"She's got plans this year. But there's actually someone else I think you should meet." Tristan said.

His dad was quiet for a while. "What's her name?"

"I didn't say it was a girl."

"But you're not gay." His dad replied. "Ergo it is a girl."

Was he really that obvious?

"Her name's Anita."

"Good to know. I'll set the table for four."

* * *

"I've got to tell you something," Tristan said nervously. He sat down on the couch next to her.

"I got that," she said closing her book and putting it aside. Her eyes were bright, and she pulled something out of her hair and held it in her hand. A Christmas rose, the flower he'd given her this morning before she sped off to a meeting somewhere. _Relieve my anxieties._

"What's going on, sweetheart?" She asked pulling her legs out from under herself and hugging them to her chest.

"You know about Thanksgiving?" Tristan asked.

"Yeah, I've been informed that it's an American holiday. Once a year, right?"

"Ha, ha." Tristan said.

She smiled at him. "Yes, I know about Thanksgiving. And even about our particular Thanksgiving plans."

"Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about," Tristan said. "I don't come from a really nice place."

Anita cocked an eyebrow which was to say _go on?_

"Tahlequah, where I'm from, is a really nice place. It's grown a lot, and it's a roller coaster that keeps going up. But the part where I'm from… It's not a rich place, and you know how my mom got sick. Money was tight for as long as I can remember and… well, just don't expect much please."

Anita unfolded her legs from underneath her and moved to his lap.

"I am going to meet your family," she said. "I am going to spend a day with you. What in the world more could I possible expect or want?"

* * *

He got to borrow a car from the actor playing Scroge for the weekend after winning a stupid bet about being able to lick your elbow.

Home was about two hours away from Oklahoma City by car if the traffic was good. They got lucky; it was. Still, it was a good two hours. They held hands over the console and ate sunflower seeds which were salty and addicting. Anita sketched out some designs for work while they talked, and sometimes she just watched the scenery pass. They pulled over near a sunflower field to stretch their legs, and the best picture ever taken of Anita was taken.

He couldn't help but tie it up to what he knew it meant in the Victorian Language of Flowers. _Adoration. _Watching her just walking around the sunflowers brought that definition to life.

Driving through Tahlequah always made him really excited and had to smile as he recognised the place. Every single building, field, bump in the road…

"What's that on the stop signs?" Anita asked.

"'Stop' in Cherokee languages," Tristan said.

"That's so cool," Anita said. "Are you fluent?"

He nodded.

They drove a bit more getting farther from the city, before pulling up to Aunt Rose's small house. It was a bit bigger than Dad's, and since she refused to cook elsewhere there wasn't really any other choice than to come here. Anita took his hand as soon as she could. Tristan let himself in and called out for his dad and aunt. They both swarmed out of the kitchen.

Aunt Rose squeezed the life out of him and then complained about how skinny he was and asked did he eat. This was her usual response, and it meant 'I love you and I miss not having you to fret over'. Dad was much more vague and brief. He smelled of tobacco and smoke, whereas his sister smelled like fresh food.

He made the introductions. Dad shook Anita's hand and she kissed his cheek, a smile on her lips. Aunt Rose went straight for the hug ("nobody's got time for hand shaking in this world, just skip to the love"- which Anita seemed to like and approve of greatly).

He started to relax. Anita was being her usual chatty self, and her charms and spirit were running their course. Even Dad laughed. The man hadn't said a word to anyone in the House of Desperate Art Students until seeing them at least twice. It was a miracle.

Eventually the conversation switched off to how Rose had been antisocial and busy the whole day and she'd been swatting people away and giving the neighbour's kids a run for their money when they came to snatch cookies from the plate she kept on the kitchen table.

"Is there anything I can do to help out?" Tristan asked.

"Anything at all?" Anita joined in.

"Sure," Aunt Rose said. Tristan moved and Rose gave him a cross look. "Not you- I'm not interested in you I've known you since before you could pick your nose. I want her. Come on, I'll show you the vegetable garden."

Anita smiled at him and winked before following Aunt Rose, asking questions.

"It's good to see you, son." Dad said. He was speaking Cherokee, which Tristan hadn't spoken in forever and a day. It wasn't

"You too, dad. Are you okay?"

"Of course I am, I'm a grown man."

Tristan didn't point out that in the past, that had never stopped him from being sick or so lost in mourning or confusion or that he stopped eating.

"You seem to be doing okay too."

Tristan shrugged.

"You look happy with her," he said. "Happier than I've seen you with anybody else."

Tristan shrugged again, but this time not because he didn't want to go into detail- rather because he didn't know how to say anything.

He looked out the window and saw Anita kneeling down in the garden with Aunt Rose, listening to the old woman ramble on about her vegetables. The light in her eyes showed legitimate interest. It wasn't really difficult to impress Anita; you just had to love what you were talking about. She could tolerate Violet's epiphanies on gouache, John's rants on how overrated he thought metaphors were, Clara's complaints about new pointe shoes that she'd been saving up for and was now disappointed with… No, not tolerate. Appreciate was the word. It was a rare gift, that. To just be happy with other people being happy.

"I love her, Dad." Tristan said. The words tasted weird in his mouth. Not because they didn't belong there, just because he hadn't said it before. Watching his parents lean on each other as Mom died had really showed him that you couldn't just throw around 'I love you' because if you meant it, the word carried too much weight for that. But he was pretty sure that this was a time to throw it out there.

"I see that," Dad said. "And I'm glad that you decided that we were fit to meet her."

"Ah, dad. It isn't like that."

He held up his hand. "I am not blaming you, Tristan. Not at all. But I'm glad you're being honest with her about where you're from. The second you start forgetting, generations are lost. Generations and the history that the majority's already chosen to forget. Don't do that to your heritage, Tristan."

Tristan nodded again. He'd been hearing various formulations of this since he'd been a kid- except when he was younger his mom had been at it too.

"And that Anita's at ease with everything? It just shows that she loves you too."

* * *

He was sitting on the steps around the theater's fire escape, talking to Anita. He was recounting all the boring jokes that he'd heard backstage and playing with his glove. She grabbed his hands.

"Don't do that," she said. "You'll damage your costume."

"It's so itchy and I don't know what to do with my hands," he complained.

"You don't know what to do with your hands?" Anita said.

Tristan shook his head. She got up to face him and put his arms around her waist.

"That's one reasonable suggestion," he said.

"Knew you'd like it," she said pushing herself to her tiptoes and kissing him.

The door slammed open.

"I'd tell you get a room, but it seems that you guys prefer the great outdoors."

Tristan pulled away and Anita turned to face Jamie, the guy who played Scrooge.

"Oh. I thought you were with Mary." Jamie said.

"How many times do we have to tell you guys? I'm taken, she's lesbian, stop spreading those rumours," Tristan sighed.

"They're too funny for that and we all know it. Well, whoever your girlfriend is, we've got to go. Director's about to blow a fuse and so we've decided to listen to what he says when he says _move it_."

"Sounds good," Tristan said. He kissed Anita on the forehead. "Enjoy the show, sweetheart."

"You too," she said. "Break a leg. Both of you."

* * *

It was like a chant slowly got taken up behind stage while everyone was getting back in their street clothes and hanging up their costumes. _McLean, McLean, McLean… _

He was still wearing half of his costume when he shimmied through the crowded change room, getting hit a few times on accounts of disrupting the flow.

When he finally got out alive, the stage manager was standing there with her clipboard and a well-built guy with blond hair and a roman nose.

"Yeah, that's him." He said.

_Did Violet redirect an ex to me without letting me know? _Was his first thought. She'd done that to him before, goddamn.

"This man wanted to speak to you," the stage manager said.

"Alright, thank you," Tristan said. She nodded and went off to do whatever was next on her to-do list.

"My name's Mitch Jensen," the man said, holding out his hand.

"Tristan McLean, nice to meet you," he replied shaking it.

"Listen, I thought you did an amazing job," Mitch said. "I've never paid attention to Bob Cracket before, I've always been focused on Tiny Tim or whatnot. You really made the character shine."

"Thank you sir," Tristan said.

"Listen, I'm with Paper mill Productions. Have you ever heard of us?"

Tristan had to rake his memory before coming up with a, "Vaguely."

"Alright," he said. "We're a very small theater troop that produces about three shows per year. We're a branch of the bigger, umm, Tank Troops."

"That I've heard of," Tristan nodded.

Mitchr held out his hand. "Right, I'm sure you have. Listen, we have a huge gaping vacancy right now. We're holding auditions via invitations on Friday at our HQ. Think you might be interested?"

His heart legitimately stopped.

"Absolutely," Tristan said.

Mitch scribbled down details on Tristan's hand, wished him a good evening and left. There were a few things to do backstage- put costumes and accessories away, get the director's gushing and criticism about the show, hear the final spectator count and douse a guy in water- before leaving.

When he did Anita was waiting for him in the lobby, holding a book whose spine was so cracked- if it were a person, it'd be dead.

She looked up.

"That was fantastic," she smiled.

"Good," he said. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Did you have fun up there? Did you have a good night?"

"Sweetheart, you have no idea," he said putting an arm around her.

* * *

Paper mill Productions was literally based in a small townhouse downtown. The door was propped open and so Tristan wandered in. A make-shift counter had been installed by the door and it served as an office. A cheerful looking young woman welcomed him warmly and asked what she could do to help him.

"A guy called Mitch Jensen invited me," Tristan said.

"Oh, you're the Bob Cracket he was so excited about," she said nodding. She got up and folded up the counter. "Come in, our studio's in the back."

He followed her into the house, which quickly revealed to be half living space and half workplace.

"Here's a quick historic for Paper mills," she said. "Mitch and his partner, guy called David, such a sweetheart, started writing screenplays and staging them when they lived together. They really wanted to stage these shows, but couldn't find a troupe to play them, you know? At the time David's mother lived with them, and she told them that if they kept up their pace they'd need a whole paper mill to finance their costs in paper."

"So the inside joke kind of just carried on when they founded the troupe," Tristan guessed.

"Bingo," she said. "And the HQ is kind of complicated, but basically it's David and Mitch's house that we all take over. They live on the top floor, but we save a lot on storage and lighting and practise room this way. I'm Lizzie, by the way, David's sister."

"Nice to meet you," he said.

She opened up a door. The room was painted completely black. "Mitch, your guy's here."

"Come in, both of you."

A bunch of people were already gathered inside, perched on blocks and even a set of stairs. There were about twenty people in there, seven of which were wearing black shirts and fedoras.

"Hey Tristan," Mitch said.

"Good morning," he said.

"Ditto. You can just find a place to sit. This is my business partner David, and anybody with a hat is in the troupe. We're waiting on another… two people?"

"Five," David said. He wore his hair in a ponytail and had piercings on hip lip and riding up his ear.

"Five people," Mitch said. "Lizzie, can you go watch the front? Thanks sis."

Tristan sat down at the foot of the set of stairs, shaking hands with the two girls sitting on the steps.

The actors were chatting amongst each other, about a dare that someone was getting to perform over the weekend. Tristan inquired as to what the dare _was _and they happily gushed all about it as more people arrived.

Mitch elbowed the guy talking and starting talking himself.

"Morning to you all, thanks for coming out. For those who don't know me, I'm Mitch Jensen, this over here is David Boyd, and we're the founders and official-type people of Paper mill Productions."

"Official-type People is what's written on their business cards," one of the actors, the bald guy with the strip of hair, Emad, said. People laughed- as per usual when this guy talked.

"Shut up Emad," Mitch said. He talked a bit more about why there were vacancies in the troupe. Turns out: two of the actors had been married and then one had an affair and they just couldn't cope anymore.

"So you see, we're not just interested in talent this time around- we want a strong team," Mitch said. "But talent's important too, so let's start our auditions."

It wasn't anything that Tristan hadn't done at an audition before. The basic exercises where you walked around the room until an emotion or character description was called out- then you walked that way until 'neutral' was called out. A monologue was given to them and they had to improvise, voice projection exercises. Then there was this 'tell a story about yourself' segment.

Tristan thought about it long and hard during everybody else's presentations before going up himself.

"Alright, I'm just going to give you the uncut biography of my roommate," he decided. "The thing with graduating from high school is that you obviously don't have your shit together. But if you're following any kind of postsecondary education while not having your shit together- everyone's okay with your state of floating nothingness. So that's what I did, I pretended not to be an actor but to be an art student which is so much more refined according to society. That's when I met Violet Argon, who was paying way more rent than she could afford. This was great because I was paying way more rent than I could afford. Long story short, I ended up living with, like, five other art students in this very small house in this very sketchy neighbourhood- so that we could pay just a bit more rent than we could afford. But of course you never get a long story short with Violet."

He talked about how she'd make him carry her around when she was tired, how when she was drunk he literally had to take a day off work to supervise her and make sure that she didn't fall out of a tree she'd burrow in, or burst into his room at two in the morning, midsummer like _I need help with the Christmas lights, will you help me with the Christmas lights._

He talked about her relationship with food and how the one time he'd dared to nag her about not going grocery shopping he woke up in the morning with groceries spread all over his room along with onion peels, egg shells and empty popsicle boxes. He made up a witty little conclusion once people had stopped laughing, and that was that for his audition.

* * *

"I'm home," Tristan called out closing the door behind him.

"Good evening," Anita called out. "I saved you a plate, it's in the oven."

"You're the best," Tristan called out kicking off his shoes. "Where is everyone?"

"Here, there, everywhere," Anita said.

He hugged her from behind in the kitchen and kissed her cheek.

"I brought you flowers," he said.

"Well that's incredibly sweet," she said smiling as he materialised the bouquet in front of her.

_Yellow poppy- success._

She gasped and spun to face him.

"You got the job?" She said.

"Sure did," he beamed. She squealed and jumped in his arms.

* * *

He was formally introduced to everyone in January, when the new place started.

There were five women and five men cast as regular actors. Madeline, Elsie, Tabitha, Katherine and Sarah (another newbie) as well as Emad, Kevin, Bill, Dom and now Tristan.

Tory was the guy in charge of set design and accessories. Costumes were designed, made and begged for by an older lady with wrinkles around her eyes named Monica, make-up was done by Vlad, and whoever had time took care of hair. Samuel was their regular special effects technician but they hired extra people if need be. A guy named Joseph was in charge of music, and a French woman named Jolie was the stage manager. The arts administrator was David, Mitch was the producer and they both balanced the role of director. Lizzie was the secretary and accountant and whatever she had to be, and a dude named Dan was in charge of publicity.

"We're a small troupe," Mitch explained. "We hire more if need be, but usually we can get everything done."

"Except for the next play," David asked. "This is actually a school district that reached out to us. They're trying to get kids interested in Shakespeare- they want to show the actual play."

"Which, of course, takes more people than we have," Mitch said spreading his hands. "Especially gender-wise, which is why some of the girls are off doing that other thing on multiple personality disorder. Some of the guys from Tank Troupe are coming down to help out- the ones who've played in Hamlet before. But we're giving priority of casting to our people- which, ha ha, David did in his sleep last night."

"Yes David," Emad clapped.

Copies of the play were passed around, and on the back of the first page there was character distribution.

**Hamlet - Tristan McLean**

**Claudius - Emad Grant**

**Gertrude - Katherine Mortimer **

**Polonius - Dominique Leduc**

**Horatio – Kevin Smith **

**Ophelia – Madeline Carter **

**Laertes - **Derek Brown

**Fortinbras – **Oliver Claus

**The Ghost - Bill Smee **

**Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – **Francis Stewart, Harry James

**Osric - **Grant Thompson

**Voltimand and Cornelius – **Thomas Richards and Bert Gordon

**Marcellus and Bernardo - **Valère Ndaymirijé and Anthony Gold

**Francisco - **Ben Prudence

**Reynaldo - **Zach Munroe

Tristan's stomach sank.

Emad tapped him on the back. "Yes Tristan."

He couldn't believe it. He looked up at David and Mitch, although he realised that it would have to be a pretty big typo to have his name written alongside 'Hamlet'.

"David, you really did do this in your sleep, didn't you?" Tristan said. It got chuckled out of everyone but David shook his head.

"You've got that look to you…" David said. "I mean, it's a freaking difficult role to pull off. Sure. But… I don't know. I want you to play Hamlet."

"Sure," Tristan said.

"Perfect," Mitch said. "Is everyone else okay? Yes? Time for our first reading then."

* * *

"Who are you?" This guy, Derek, said. He was from the Tank Troupe, and so Tristan didn't know him.

"Tristan McLean," he said.

"I've never even heard of you," he said. "How did you get the role of Hamlet?"

The rudeness slammed into him like a wave of _excuse you?_

"You'd have to ask the casting director," Tristan said.

"I think it's dumb how a troupe that doesn't even have enough actors in it gets to put up this show."

"I think it's dumb how a guy who doesn't even have any respect for the troupe playing it or its basic functioning gets to perform in one of their plays," Tristan said.

Derek shot him an evil eye before going off.

Dom patted Tristan's back. "Well done, my friend. You have simultaneously made a bad person piss off and discovered why we all hate the Tank Troupe."

"They can't all be like that," Tristan said.

"Yes, actually, they can all be pretentious jerks and they all are." Dom said. "I _love it _when we get to work with them."

* * *

Tristan was talking to David about this one particular scene as the later was trying to get out of the door. Tristan felt bad to be holding him up, but he really had to know where he was supposed to be.

"Oh, there he is," Lizzie said once they got close to the desk.

"Me?" David asked.

"I couldn't care less about you. I'm talking about McLean," Lizzie said. "Your girl's here."

"Early," Tristan frowned.

He followed David's lead and jumped over Lizzie's desk (it annoyed her to no end) to reach Anita.

"I'm a bit early, we had a gas leak at the office and we were all dismissed for the day," she said throwing her hands up.

"Wow, fun," Tristan said.

"Not really," she smiled kissing his cheek. "How are you?"

"Good. I can grab my coat and we can leave now if you want to-"

"Man, give her a tour," David said stuffing papers and spiral notebooks in a messenger bag.

"Do," Lizzie nodded. "Ani, you haven't seen our beautiful inside yet, have you? That's a shame. And you've been here what, three months McLean? Shame on you."

"Do you want to see the office?" Tristan asked.

"Sure," she said.

Lizzie folded up her office table which was how (as she said it) "normal people got in". He dragged Anita behind him.

"So first things first, you've got Lizzie and her organised chaos," Tristan said. "We call this place Rome. Moving on, this is our printer room. As you can see we've decided that Shakespearean Star Wars posters should decorate it, as well as this picture of a dog peeing on the Eiffel Tower. That desk is Jolie's because she needed an office but David and Mitch wouldn't give it to her, ergo she made her own. If you spin around you have David's office. He never locks it- aha!- now if you dare cross the cliché 70's bead curtain, this is Mitch's office you're in. Once you emerge from Mitch's office you get to see Dan's room. Dan does the publicity.

Moving on, you get this living room which is now just a storage room. These are the bigger pieces that we don't want to drag up and down the stairs –that bird bath is my favourite-, really we have more costumes in the spare bedroom upstairs. Also those costumes are often lent to school productions or whatnot and we keep some for the Tank Troupe- which is like our spawner."

"Yeah, I remember," Anita giggled.

"Spin around and hello, it's our actually functioning living room. That's the TV on which we watch dumb show marathons when David and Mitch tell us to work without supervising us. Here are piles and piles of books and plays that we illegally photocopy."

"What are those binders?"

"David's original plays," Tristan said. "None of them have ever been played, but they're all pretty good. Now in the back of this lovely place we have our little black box room with cubes and curtains and some fake lighting, and more importantly the kitchen. That tiger hanging above the sink does the dishes for us. That lion on the fridge makes sure that nobody steals our food- even though there is nothing worth stealing unless you like mustard and soda crackers that have been refrigerated for no good reason. That cheetah on the window is some stained-art doohicky that someone just couldn't bear to leave behind at a garage sale."

"It's a stained glass cheetah," Anita frowned in confusion.

"The sad thing is, any of fifteen people could have brought that home," Tristan said.

"That's…" Anita shook her head. "Carry on."

Tristan laughed. "That's artwork by Lizzie and Mitch's niece on the wall, she is four if I am correct. There are some deep quotes written off as a mural there. This is the pantry in which everything is in empty peanut butter jars because of mice," Tristan said. "Upstairs is where David and Mitch live and have guests and so forth, so it's more acceptable."

"You guys have too much fun in here," Anita said looking around. She squeezed his hand. "I'm happy for you."

* * *

"Morning, sleepyhead," Tristan said. Anita rubbed her eyes and mumbled something incoherent as she went to go grab herself a cup of coffee. He beat her to it.

"Half hot chocolate," he said handing her the cup.

She looked up at him with an eyebrow cocked.

"I'm such a lucky girl- what, with getting half hot chocolate coffee this early in the morning," she said.

"And flowers," Violet yelled from the basement. He swore that she was an eagle.

Anita smiled. "You remembered." She said.

"Of course I did," Tristan said. "Not every day that I meet the most incredible woman in the world."

She smiled when she saw the blue flowers. Roses. _Love at first sight. _

* * *

"Did you get any crap for being late?" Anita asked over supper. There was a particularly annoying elevator music creating sound pollution all around.

"Oh yeah," Tristan said. "I hate the bus system- it's even worse when I have to cross town."

"It's getting ridiculous," Anita agreed.

"And they're about to change the schedule which'll get the drivers more confused and make the system, once again, less efficient." Tristan said shaking his head. As if he wasn't losing enough sleep over the world- now the buses were about to go screwy.

"You know, my apartment's in the West end," Anita said. "It's been used as a crash pad for other people for the last few months, but we could move in without a problem."

It took some thinking over, but that's what they ended up doing.

* * *

It was the kind of minimally and effortlessly elegant place that Tristan would expect Anita to live in. The floor was mostly empty, the furniture was all white or beige or some funky colour she specifically called _taupe. _The walls were sharp, modern grey or blues decorated with portraits, sceneries or modern art (a.k.a. lines). She'd had an unsurprising yet brief career as a model and had collected the paintings by making friends.

The whole –most likely carefully planned- décor was temporarily ruined by bags of his stuff lying around. He would clean up later- for now he was just tired because he'd spent the morning at the diner, the afternoon at HQ and had just finished moving everything at ten to twelve.

But he did notice what flower she'd put in the vase.

Mayflower- _welcome. _

* * *

Once you came into Paper mill Production's HQ once, you were free to roam it forever. So when someone vaguely mentioned that Anita was around, finding her necessitated a map.

He found her in Monica's basement office, where she was bent over a tilted table with her.

"The looser tunic is more 13th century- they would've been tighter by Hamlet's time. But the design is really sharp."

"Maybe put a servant in it," Monica suggested. "Of course, their clothes wouldn't be modern or nice or fitting…"

"That would be great," Anita said.

"Done deal," Monica said scribbling down.

"Party in the costume department," Tristan called out.

Monica looked up. "Tristan McLean, how dare you not tell me that your girl was in fashion? Shame on you, she's a gem!"

"Oh, thank you," Anita said wrapping an arm around the older woman.

Monica hugged her back. "I'm going to have to start borrowing her- she knows more about Medieval fashion than I could ever learn. What do you say, sweetie?"

"I'd love to," Anita said. "Really, your office is incredible."

_Uh oh. I've introduced the two biggest fashion nuts in history to one another. What have I done? _

* * *

"Well, well, well. Looks like the lover birds are back in town." John said as Anita closed the door.

"Did you really miss us that much?" Anita laughed.

"No, we were just wondering how long it'd be before you two came to smooch a meal off of us," Clara said.

"What the hell do you mean that now there's food in here on a regular basis?" Tristan said.

* * *

"Salut Jolie," Anita said as Tristan dragged her through HQ. She spun around looking all over.

"Oh, sorry," she said. "Tristan told me that you spoke French…"

"Oh, yes. _Oui, bien sure. Je suis juste surprise de l'entendre._ "

"_Je vous comprend,_ "she said with a smile.

"_Tristan ne m'avais pas prévenu que vous étiez française._ "

"_Oh, bof. Je suis originaire de New York, mais j'ai de la famille en France, dans la Méditéranée... ce coin-là, enfin._ "

"_C'est fantastique,_ "Jolie said with a smile. "_Écoutez, il faudra prendre un café tout à l'heure- il faut que je file._ "

"_Bien sûre._ _C'était un plaisir de vous parler._ "

"_Parrément," _Jolie said with a smile before rushing out again.

"You probably just made her day," Tristan said putting an arm around Anita's waist.

"_Ça fait plaisir," _she said smiling.

* * *

By mid-June, high school semesters were wrapping up and so they were starting to present Hamlet. The dust settled around issues regarding schedule and it became pretty clear. They were showing for two weeks. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays they were open to the public in the evening or afternoons. During the day they were showing in classes. An unexpected rush of publicity from schools outside the district wanting in too had them presenting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.

"Are we the first people ever to present _Hamlet _or what?" Emad said shaking his head.

"I don't know man," Tristan said shaking his head.

"The school districts are fighting each other," Mitch filled them in. "They all want to be equally cool or interactive or avant-garde for the kids. Catholic vs. public, private vs. public- it's a whole thing."

"I'm fine with that," Lizzie cheered. "Honestly, since Monica took care of most of the costumes with Anita- we saved big."

"Good thing women see redeeming qualities in you, McLean," Emad patted his arm.

* * *

She rolled in her sleep to face him and then opened her eyes.

"Sweetheart, you're not sleeping," she said.

"Yeah, I've been…" He noticed what the flowers on the bedside table were- which he should have done earlier.

_Begonia- deep thoughts._

She'd noticed.

"I've been thinking."

She looped her arm around his waist. "Show premieres on Friday. You should get some shut-eye. Unless that's of course why you can't sleep."

"Yeah," Tristan said. "I mean… They call Hamlet the most prestigious role in English literature. How the hell am I going to pull it off?"

"David has faith in you, and Mitch is happy with that they see in practises," Anita said. "I hear you practise and I think you're good."

"I know," he sighed. "I mean, Violet's trying to teach me yoga and everything but I just _can't _not-worry about this."

"Your self-confidence is absurdly low for a performer," Anita said quietly. "And it's even worse for such a fantastic man."

Her words didn't particularly move him.

"I don't think I can say anything to make you change your mind," Anita said. "That's unfortunate. But just do what you always do, sweetheart. Slip into character and stay put until the end of the play. You do what you're best at without thinking."

"I don't want… I don't want to ruin anything for anyone."

"You won't," Anita said. "You won't, as long as you get enough sleep. I trust you."

* * *

Monica was going over all of the costumes again with help from Anita, who was nearly volunteering as her personal assistant by this point.

Anita fixed the cloak over his shoulders. The 'inky black' cloak, setting Hamlet apart from all the others who were trying to forget his father ASAP. That particular costume piece really drove him nuts. It would have been like Dad taking all the pictures of his mother off the walls, tossing all her things, packing away all of her books after she died.

"They're just jitters," Anita reminded him as if she knew exactly how much his stomach was churning. She moved on to fix his vest. A "You'll be fine. I trust you. See?"

She tapped the flower pinned behind her ear.

_Freesia- Trust._

* * *

Anita's arms were looped around his neck as he gave her a piggy-back up the stairs (the elevator was always broken) leading to the apartment.

"You did it, you did it, you did it," she sing-songed in his ear. "Just like I said you would."

Tristan was rather happy with himself. Opening night hadn't been so bad after all. But he wasn't about to cave and tell her, ergo giving her ammo for the next two thousand years in the _I told you so _department.

"Uh oh," he said as they approached the door. "This is the fun part. Okay, how do we do this? Let's see… _beep, beep, beep…" _

He backed her up against the door and she laughed, putting the key in the lock and opening the apartment.

She hopped off his back and kissed his cheek one more time before locking the door.

"I'm proud of you, sweetheart," she said.

"Thank you," Tristan said taking an exaggerated bow for the soul purpose of making her laugh.

* * *

The next two weeks were surprisingly relaxing, though stuffed with performances in the days or in the evenings, very few shifts at the diner, readings with the cast and a lot of messing around at David and Mitch's place.

There were up and downs to the play's quality though they usually ranked pretty highly. Some excellent critiques were published in the newspaper –and as Anita never ceased to mention, a lot of the time Tristan got complimented on his performance- of course, but not everybody could be at their 100% all the time.

Like today. Although, granted, he'd started off well. He was still pretty mad at the universe. With two performances left to go after this one… now was not the time for the staircase prop to suddenly break and tip over on him.

He swore as the prop guy Tory yelled out to be careful and had to pull his leg out from under it.

Katherine ran to him and knelt down, pushing her hair back.

"Geez, are you okay?"

Tory rolled up his pants and pulled his shoe off.

"No, don't take that off, I'm fine," Tristan said. It hurt like hell and he had to watch his breathing as Tory helped him back to his feet, apologising a million times.

"I'm okay man, go fix your prop," Tristan said.

Mitch and David materialised with their _now is not the time for this oh my God Universe, why me _pre-show nerves.

"I swear, you probably sprained that," David said.

"It doesn't matter, I'm okay."

"Tristan, we can call Jeb from the Tank Troupe and just delay it for a couple of minutes while he…"

"I can do this guys," Tristan said pushing himself off the wall. He nearly collapsed on his ankle but he talked himself out of it. He was _not _going to fail now. "See? Perfectly fine."

"Liar," Mitch said.

"We start in ten minutes; do you have time to hook me up to a polygraph?" Tristan asked.

They didn't look happy about it, but sure enough, the show went on.

* * *

Act IV, scene IV, Tristan was thinking something along the lines of _just amputate me already._

"The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!"

He stormed offstage with the usual furious pace and as soon as he passed the curtains he limped horribly. Mitch grabbed his arm and helped him to a chair.

"You slipped during that scene and you nearly fell. My God Tristan. Are you okay? I 'ave gotten you some ice," Jolie said handing him a pack. He pressed it to his ankle and thanked her.

"Tristan, you're doing well, man," Mitch said. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, not mentioning the spreading pain, and thanked Jolie for the water bottle she was handing him. He felt way too hot in his costume, his ankle hurt like hell… It overall sucked.

And this particular teenager-friendly performance of Hamlet was a three hour and a half long play with intermissions…

But he made it. He duelled. He died of poison (which was a nice pause from being on his feet although he did acknowledge that he had been a bit quicker to fall this time). He even got to salute. But once the curtains fell he collapsed against Emad and maybe even passed out a bit.

"Stay with us, man," Emad said. "Good job man, you didn't even limp. That was intense."

"It doesn't matter," Mitch said. "Tristan, take as much of your costume as possible off. David's driving you to the hospital."

* * *

Madeline's family was rich. But not rich like Violet's parents, where they thought that art was a waste. The kind of rich that meant that they didn't give a damn about what in the world Madeline did, even if that meant that she dragged thirty people into the family backyard and roasted a couple of burgers.

"Cheers," Mitch said raising a glass. "To the really nice presentations we put up, and to no more Hamlet."

"Cheers," Tristan muttered with the masses, raising his own.

* * *

Everyone was sprawled in the black box room.

"We could do a few things now," Mitch said. "We finally got rid of the Tank Troupe guys, so that's nice."

People cheered.

"-But the girls are still working on that thing to talk about mental health, so we're going to wait a while before starting anything else." Mitch said. "Plus Tristan's leg is busted for another- what, year?"

"Eight weeks apparently," he said spreading his hands.

"Yeah, sure," Mitch said waving his hand. "Anyways, David has a few ideas."

David messed around with notes that everyone knew he didn't need. "We could put up a modern day version of fairy tales."

"That was fun when we did Cinderella in the summer," Elsie said.

"Right. This would be called Beauty Sleep, and of course would take after Sleeping Beauty." David said.

"The thing with that is that we get a lot of business from little kids and schools," Kevin said. "So do we want to have it in the summer or during the school year?"

"Either way, we won't have it ready by the summer, or in time for the school council to sign off on the project and allow us to perform," Lizzie said.

"Let's save it then," Emad said.

David put the note back in another folder from where he was sitting on the staircase block.

"We could put up A Midsummer Night's Dream to try and get the same deal with the school board," David said.

"Nah," Mitch said. "The actual Shakespearian troupe would be pissed if we did that."

"Yeah, let's not get in trouble with these guys," Bill said. "What else have you got there, Dave?"

"We could go into abstract theater," David said.

"Nope," Tabitha said. "Next?"

"I have an original scenario that may-"

"Yes," Emad said. "Yes, that is excellent and exactly what we want."

"I didn't even finish," David said.

"If you're going to let us perform an original script, we're in." Katherine said clapping.

"Give us the name, for the heck of it," Tabitha said.

"Shadows of New York," David said.

"What's it about?" Sara asked.

"Basically, in the long run, it's three people who trample on each other's lives without even knowing it. We've got three main characters- Oliver who just got paralysed and had his sporting career taken from underneath his feet and is now working in an office job. Then there's Jessica who is taking care of her dying uncle after giving up on a scholarship, and you don't know what exactly happened at first- but he was a jerk to her. Last up is Dan, who is a teenager working at a soup kitchen because he doesn't have the volunteering hours he needs to graduate from high school."

"Where do the shadows come in?" Elsie asked.

"Two ways," David said. "A) Some things always follow us, a dark part of us we don't want. B) There's always a place for things to hide. These three people are always dealing with what's going on in their lives, these fiends or villains that are after them all the time. And then you see how in the end, we become shadows."

"That's the coolest thing," Tristan said.

"Yeah?" Mitch said. Approval or at least a will to try seemed to be the common key. "It's a go."

* * *

**Jessica Trudeau- Astronomy student who gave up her studies to take care of her dying uncle. -Elsie.**

**Dan McCoy- High school problem student rushing to finish his volunteering hours. -Dom.**

**Oliver Sin- Young recently paralysed hockey player working a despised office job. -Tristan.**

**John Blair- Jessica's maternal uncle who took her in after her parents' death, is dying of cancer. -Bill.**

**Robbie- A homeless man that Dan encounters multiple times, holds a philosophy degree. -Kevin.**

**Lindsay Trudeau- Oliver's physiotherapist; Jessica's paternal cousin. -Katherine.**

**Marla- Dan's girlfriend. She had a bright future and Dan always took care of her first and foremost. She is dying of cancer and is waiting for one of three certified surgeons to take her as their patient. -Sarah. **

**Professor Henry Gee- Jessica's former university teacher. Robbie's brother; he nearly lost his job trying to repay a favour to his brother. -Emad.**

**Caroline Sin- Oliver's overprotective and condescending mother who started paying attention to his life when sports wasn't it. -Tabitha.**

**Shadow Lurker- Fills in the role of any supporting character and portrays shadows. Is a haunting onstage presence. -Madeline.**

* * *

He crashed on the couch right next to her. Anita snuggled up to him.

"Are you doing anything this summer?" She asked him.

"Anita looks down in the dumps," he sing-sang.

"Anita is very tired," she said dropping her head on his chest. He kissed her hair and moved it out of her face.

"How come? Are you sleeping alright?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm just tired."

"It's summer soon," Tristan said. "That should help."

"Yeah, maybe."

"You like summer. I know this guy who's doing these crack-fuelled researches on whether or not seasons affect human behaviour."

"I think so," she said. "I mean, we've always associated seasons with specific moods or colours for reasons right?"

"Yeah. It's like that story, I think it's Greek. They said that the seasons were because the farming goddess got upset that her daughter was forced to live with the king of the dead in the underworld after he kidnapped and married her. Persephone was her name."

"Demeter was the mother, yes," Anita said quietly.

"Exactly. People don't just invent myths for no reason; it's to represent something very human." Tristan said.

"You think so?"

"For sure," he said. "That's what religions –pagan or otherwise- are about all around, no? Explaining what humans felt or knew or saw- having someone to blame for all of it, I guess."

He was quiet for a second.

"I think that's why I'm not religious," Tristan said. "If I start looking for someone to blame for all the bad stuff, I'd never stop."

"Hmm," Anita said.

"Am I boring you with these deep thoughts while you're clearly not doing well?" Tristan said.

"No, no! It's really interesting. Refreshing to hear." Anita said. "I think that myths are partially true, at least a bit. For example the Okapi is a real animal that people thought was made up for years, ditto Komodo dragons. People saw dinosaur remnants and called them dragons. It's a bit of a nicer way to see the world, when you think about it. And it really keeps people going. There's a whole movement dedicated to cryptozoology- people go in the wild and choose to believe endlessly in unicorns or Big Foot. Then they believe in goodness, love, peace. It does have some healthy connotations to it."

"I guess," Tristan said. "Depends on the person, I suppose."

"I suppose," she said yawning.

Tristan kissed her head. "I'm bringing you to bed, you are exhausted sweetheart."

"No complaints there," she said slumping against him. He was good enough with his ankle now to carry her for the short distance and tuck her in before going off to read his text a few more times before joining her.

* * *

"I am freaking excited for the actual wheelchair to get fixed," Emad groaned, pushing Tristan on a chair around. He was enjoying this whole my-character-is-paralysed-and-I-am-in-character-er go-you-need-to-move-me-around situation.

"Tory's working really hard on it," David said. "In the meantime, _places like I said."_

* * *

"What's that smell?" Anita moaned. Tristan put the bulb of garlic down on her pillow.

_Garlic- sickness, illness, get well soon._

"I'm not being attacked by a vampire on a nightly basis," she groaned swatting it away. But she was smiling, so as far as he was concerned his plan was working.

"Until you prove to me otherwise, I am going with that assumption."

Anita hid her face in the pillow, burrowing like an ostrich.

"Seriously An. You should go see a doctor, you're not getting any better."

"I don't have to," Anita said. "I'm not…"

"You're not sick?" Tristan said. "Really? You're going to try that on me?"

"No, that's not what I meant," she sighed sitting up. "I mean… Oh, sit down- I do know what's going on."

Tristan crinkled his nose, not liking her tone, and he sat down next to her. She took his hands and looked him in the eyes.

"I'm actually pregnant."

_Poof. _Mind blown. He was kind of just stunned.

"Tristan?" He asked attentively.

"Yeah, I'm still here, just… really?" He said. "Like, pregnant with a baby."

"Usually it's one baby, yes," she said.

_Poof, poof._

"Are you okay?" Anita asked. That snapped him out of it.

"That's a really stupid question right now," Tristan said. "The actually intelligent question is are _you _okay? Like, with this? What do you want to do? Whatever it is, it's okay and I'm right here and I feel like I should hold you but will you punch me…"

"I'm fine," Anita said. "I swear, I'm okay. But- yeah, holding me would be nice."

Tristan wrapped an arm around her and kissed her hair. She snuggled up against his chest and they lied down.

"I can feel your heartbeat," she said. He could hear her nearly giggling.

"I'm kind of… surprised… That's all…"

"Sweetheart, I think that's the understatement of the century," she said. She turned around and put a hand on his cheek. "Tell me honestly what's going on with you right now?"

"I'm…" Tristan scrambled for words. "I'm kind of shocked. I'd never really thought that I'd have kids before. It wasn't really something I thought about… but you know what, you're here and now it's here and however that goes, I'm not going anywhere. At all and no matter what."

Anita smiled. "So you don't mind having a baby?"

"If that's what you want to do right now, sure," Tristan said carefully. "Like I said, I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

He was about 98% sure that Anita was still uncertain about how he was dealing with the baby concept. He was 100% sure that he had to show her that he was okay with it, that he was going to be able to cope with the terrifying prospect of a child (eventually).

And so he came home one night with a bouquet of flowers.

Celandine was a cute little button flower with yellow heart-shaped leaves, and it made Anita smile and jump into his arms when she saw them in a vase on the dinner table, on her bedside table, on the coffee table and a little everywhere around the apartment.

_Joys to come. _

* * *

It was a process of telling people about the baby once they decided to. They practised on Violet who was building herself a bunker currently. Then they told the others at Paper Mills. Then they told Dad and Rose, who flipped out completely. Dad told Tristan to marry her and Anita said 'no not just because of a baby' nearly as quickly as Aunt Rose smacked her brother. It went over generally well.

Except in Tristan's head, he was still freaking out.

* * *

Tristan was looking at the ceiling, his mind far too cloudy and aware for him to sleep. He was too busy thinking.

Babies and children all around were expensive. Furniture, food, clothes, diapers, toys and so forth...

It seemed like a cruel joke- what he made by playing with Paper Mills was substantial enough for him and Anita, but with a baby too? And if she stopped working, which may or may not happen… He hadn't exactly counted on having kids when figuring out what to do with himself. He'd figured that for better or for worst, he could handle himself with whatever as long as he was doing something that he loved. That didn't keep other people happy, however.

He had options, he supposed. He could go get his job at the diner back and just do that for the rest of his life, which didn't sound that great but seemed safer. He could jump ships and study to become a librarian or something, pull out of theater and drag himself into a cubicle. He could survive in a cubicle, it had to be physically possible... He didn't want to go back home- he didn't think that he'd be able to handle doing that. Besides, things weren't that desperate. He could take up another second job to increase cash intake, but he didn't want to be away from home 24/7.

Anita stirred in her sleep. She curled up against him like she did when she was cold. He could feel the small bump in her belly.

Tristan sighed and pulled a blanket up from the ground and wrapped it up around her. Her hand closed around its edge instinctively. He kissed her cheek.

"I'll figure it out," he said trying to relax. "I'll figure out what's best, I promise."

He didn't sleep until the last three nights of insomnia forcibly knocked him out.

He woke up and Anita was gone. There was a note scrawled on her side of the bed explaining that she had gone to have a coffee with a friend (and she promised that it was just a way of speaking she wasn't actually drinking coffee). And a flower on his bedside table: a winter daphne, small pinkish flowers all clumped up together in bunches.

_I would not have you otherwise. _

* * *

"Home," he called closing the door behind him. The bouquet by the door had changed- irises, _good news. _

Anita walked out of the kitchen from which the smell of sugar cookies spewed. She had a smile on her face.

"You look pretty happy," he said feeling the weight of the day ease off of his back.

She smiled and burrowed against his chest. He gave her a hug and kissed the top of her head.

"So remember how I told you not to cancel that thing in the morning because of my appointment?"

"Yes," Tristan grumbled. That wasn't a fight that he'd been happy to lose.

"Well," she said. "I went."

"And?" Tristan asked.

She looked up smiling. "It's a girl."

* * *

"Do you need a ride anywhere?" Tristan asked swinging back into the bedroom, jingling his car keys. Anita was standing in front of the mirror with her sweater pulled over her baby bump.

Tristan shut up and she turned to look at him.

"No, I'm working from home today."

"You okay?" He asked.

"Yes. I just can't believe how fat I am, that's all."

* * *

A hat was being passed around the studio.

"What's going on?" Dave asked when he walked in with Tristan.

"We're taking bets on when your kid's going to pop up and what you're going to name it," Emad informed him.

"Okay," Tristan said unsure.

"I put ten bucks in for Clare. Ten bucks means that I don't get pizza tonight," Sara said. "Just think it over a bit. Clare McLean sounds really, really nice…"

"I had a roommate named Clare," he said. "It's not going to happen."

Dominique yelled in triumph and Sara dropped to the ground.

* * *

They were watching Forrest Gump, which had just come out on DVD. Anita was nibbling on cranberries, which she didn't even like. She was snuggled up against him and her spare hand was resting on her belly.

"Is she kicking again?" He asked.

"The real question is: has she stopped kicking in the last week?" Anita asked. She rubbed her hand over her belly. "You're keeping me up at night _and _making me look like a whale. Weight and pockets, darling."

Tristan excused himself, got up, and retrieved a flower from the vase on the kitchen table. It was actually a rather stiff column surrounded by lavender four-leafed flowers.

_Stock- You will always be beautiful to me._

* * *

"Violet, the troop pulled an all-nighter at the theater," Tristan whined. "What do you want?"

"Just bear with me," she said. "When's the last time that you checked your baby room?"

"I don't know, a while back," Tristan said. "It's empty."

"Yes I know," she said. Her hair was twisted around a paintbrush and held up that way. "Because I had time to do _this thing _while you were doing your adult job."

She opened up the door and Tristan's jaw dropped to the ground.

The mural was about the most gorgeous thing that Tristan had ever seen.

Violet had painted on windows everywhere, and it each gave on to a different view. Underwater, where swarms of fish swam across; a kingdom that any Disney princess may rule; a jungle with a giraffe peeking to say hello; Candy Land; Wonderland; a cherry blossom tree where fairies were fluttering… It seemed random and misfit, but Violet had tied it all together as Violet could.

"Violet…" Tristan said shaking his head.

"You like?" Violet said. "Good. I spent energy breaking in here and doing this, and stressed a lot about whether you'd walk in here before I was done."

"Does Anita know?" Tristan asked.

"Nope," Violet said.

Tristan shook his head again. Violet wrapped an arm around it and snuggled up to his chest. "I'm just happy for you. I'm happy that you're happy that you're having a baby, I'm proud that you're both onboard for this…"

"And you want an excuse for the kid to call you Aunt Violet."

"Yes."

Tristan put his head on hers. "You're my best friend. Of course you're Aunt Violet. Actually we were wondering if you might be Godmother Violet…"

* * *

He rubbed his eyes and tried not to lean on the wall as he used the payphone.

"Paper Mills Production, how may I help you?" Lizzie said on the other end.

"It's Tristan," he said.

"Oh, hey you."

"Hey, listen- I can't come in today," he said.

"Did Kevin give you that weird virus thing that's been flying-" Lizzie stopped, gasped, and practically screamed. "Is the baby born?"

"Yes," he said rubbing his eye again and shaking his head.

Lizzie screamed again and called a bunch of people over.

"She's a preemie!" Lizzie said in a burst of fantastic observation skills.

"I know," Tristan said.

"And how is everything?"

"Mother and baby are fine," he said. "Everything's okay."

"More importantly," he heard Emad yell into the phone, "What is her name? Did you make it Laura like I said?"

"How is she?" Madeline –was that Madeline? Probably- asked. Tristan decided that that was more relevant.

"Beautiful," Tristan said. A smile fought its way up to his lips. "Absolutely beautiful."

"We're happy for you," Katherine said. "When do we get to meet Midget?"

"Don't know," Tristan said. "Listen, I'm on calling duty while they're both sleeping, so I have to let you go."

He caught Violet as she was on way to bed, despite it being noon, and that's when Dad walked in. He tapped Tristan on the back.

"What are you doing out here?"

"She wanted coffee and I had to call work," Tristan said. "Hello to you too."

Dad's eyes were sparkly. "Where's my granddaughter?"

"Holy smokes," Tristan said. He couldn't help but smile. "Someone's excited."

"I have a granddaughter," he said.

"I'll bring you. I think that everyone's sleeping," Tristan said.

On their way there, Dad put his arm around Tristan. "I'm proud of you. A lot of men would have walked away."

"Those aren't men, they're excuses." Tristan said.

Dad patted his back. "I'm glad that you agree. And you, son, are a good man. Don't ever doubt that -although you will doubt it because children do that. Trust me."

Tristan nodded. "I don't know whether to feel happy or like I'm about to be sick."

"Both. Both is good," Dad said.

Tristan ended up being very wrong about the sleeping. Anita was awake and she'd wrapped herself in his jacket and curled up with a book.

"Hi Tom," she said when she saw him walk in. "And hello coffee."

"Yes, let's totally ignore the person who brought you both of those things," Tristan said.

"And the father of my granddaughter," Dad said.

"She's right here," Tristan said before Dad could ask- which seemed pretty obvious because, like, why else would they have a crib in here?

She was asleep in her crib, flat on her back. She was wearing footie pyjamas rolled up at the sleeves and a little hat to keep her head warm. Dad cooed.

"She's…"

"Too beautiful for words," Tristan finished. He'd had a similar reaction once she'd been dried off and plopped down in his arms by a methodical doctor.

Anita put an arm on his back and her head on his shoulder. Tristan kissed the top of her head.

"What's her name?" Dad asked.

"It was going to be Amy," Tristan said.

"So Amy McLean?" Dad asked.

"No," Anita said.

Tristan shrugged. "Anita vetoed it the second she saw her."

"Amy," Anita said. "Does that look like an Amy to you? No, she's not an Amy."

"So we're back to the drawing board," Tristan said. "Honestly sweetheart, you could call her Eugenia and I'd be fine with it. Look at her."

Anita gave him a look. "She is gorgeous; I'm not going to deny that. But Eugenia is a cruel name."

"My granddaughter will not be named Eugenia."

"Yeah, please don't literally name her Eugenia I don't want her to hate me. We'll find something decent," Tristan promised.

"Didn't you mention Delilah at some point?" Dad said.

"Yes," Anita said tugging on his arm. "Delilah is pretty."

"Your last name is Delaney. Delilah Delaney is weird."

"She doesn't get my last name, it doesn't matter," Anita said.

"Yes it does," Tristan said.

Apparently their arguing had woken said unnamed child up because she started squirming and her eyes blinked open.

"Hey you," Tristan said. "Wow, this must be creepy for her."

"Here Tom," Anita said butting their way past the two men to pick the little girl up. She didn't react much, just starred at Anita like _you again- who the heck are you? Why are you always here? _

Dad looked like his head was about to burst when Anita lowered Micro-Baby into his arms. She was still for a bit and then she started screaming. Anita picked her right on up and after a few 'oh baby, what's going on? What's going on? Why would you yell like that…' she had stopped.

"Don't take it personally," Tristan said. "She's anti-social. She hates this one doctor and the nurse that's always here."

Dad was laughing. "She's so small. You wouldn't think she'd have that kind of voice in her. It's powerful…"

He frowned and looked up at Anita. Anita made eye contact with him. Dad's eyes widened and Anita turned away.

"She might just be hungry," Anita said before walking back to bed.

Dad shook his head. "She'll sing even the most difficult Cherokee songs."

"That'd be cool," Tristan said. "Maybe she will. What if we name her something like that for good karma? Something to do with music or muses."

"Not muses," Anita said quickly.

"Okay, not muses," Tristan said. "But still…"

"Piper," Dad said. "Call her Piper."

* * *

Tristan was told to "Find me something decent to wear" and "a good book", so he took a trip back home in the afternoon. He brought her back some fruit as well, remembering her complaint about how the hospital food shouldn't qualify as food. He also brought some flowers.

He'd always thought that daffodils were the weirdest flowers, but 43 hours after Piper was born and 107 days after he saw them in the flower language dictionary, he thought they were cool.

_A new beginning._

* * *

David thrust a bouquet of roses in Anita's arms and as per usual Mitch did the talking.

"So we wanted to congratulate you on successfully procreating," Mitch said. "And we know that you guys have a very complicated Elizabethan flower code or whatever, but we are unsophisticated and so we got you roses because we like roses."

"Yeay!" Emad said.

The troupe gave them a round of applause.

* * *

It was late (technically it was early morning) and dark when he walked into Piper's room. He was agitated and rushed to get her to stop crying before she yelled her throat raw (which she had already done and given them heart attacks by doing) or woke up Anita.

He nearly knocked down the vase on the table near the door but managed to catch it as to not-create more drama.

It was full of baby's breath- _innocence._

* * *

"Stop everything!" Mitch said.

The action onstage froze.

"I just wanted to point out that there is a baby in the theater," Mitch said. "That is all."

"Baby!" Sarah said snapping out of character. Tristan got up from his wheelchair and hopped off the stage. Anita was standing in the back like a deer in the headlights.

"I swear that I was trying to be quiet," she said.

"Yeah, that works so well," Tristan said kissing her cheek. "Hey Pipes."

Piper did one of her bird-call/squeal blends and Anita passed her over.

"Yeah. Hi baby," Tristan said.

"Baby," Sarah squealed. "Your baby is my favourite baby of them all."

"Back off, you're not getting her," Tristan said kissing Pipe's forehead. Anita laughed.

* * *

"What's going on?" Violet said after letting herself in. "Tristan? Is Piper okay? What about Anita?"

"Piper's fine," Tristan said. He couldn't move, he just stood there leaning on the kitchen table and starring at the single flower she'd left, resting on a piece of paper.

Violet wandered in. "And Anita? Is she..?"

Tristan couldn't move.

"Tris, if you're going to call me panicking and tell me to come and hang right back up, that's not cool man!" Violet said. "Where's Anita? Are you alone here?"

"Anita's gone," Tristan said.

Violet frowned. "Okay, okay, but breathe in and out. She might just be out for air or…"

Tristan shook his head. He had trouble breathing, he didn't understand. Last night they'd been fine. She'd kissed him goodnight, she'd fallen asleep falling asleep against his chest…

"Her stuff's gone and she left…"

But he'd woken up this morning, found the flower, ran to make sure that Piper was still in her crib and called Violet.

_Michealmas Daisy- Farewell _

"She said it with a flower?" Violet said poking one of the petals.

Tristan nodded his head and Violet wrapped her arms around him at the same second that he broke down.


End file.
